


Dog Person

by Avera_Illisa



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Adorable Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Connor has too many dog themed clothes, Connor loves dogs, Fluff, Gavin Reed Redemption, Gavin Reed is So Done, Gavin and Connor are neighbors, Gavin gets jealous of his own cat, Gavin has a cat, Gavin's cat is named Milo btw, Gay Disaster Gavin Reed, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), M/M, POV Gavin Reed, Pre-Relationship, Rated T cuz gavin won't stop swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:30:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avera_Illisa/pseuds/Avera_Illisa
Summary: Gavin's cat won't stop stealing clothes from his neighbor.And maybe said neighbor is a little odd. And has way too many dog-themed clothes than is probably healthy.And is way too fuckingcute.





	Dog Person

Gavin comes home one evening to find a sock in Milo's mouth. 

He'd just opened the door, keys still dangling from the curve of his hand, when the damned cat had just sauntered up to him as though nothing was amiss, colorful fabric still clamped between his jaws, and dropped the sorry thing at his feet like some ridiculous offering or gift. He'd looked up at Gavin, tail flicking a lazy arc behind him, silent in eager expectation of praise and scratches. 

Gavin did not move. 

"Milo," he'd iterated slowly, eyes fixed on the sad lump of fabric curled by his feet, "where the fuck did you get that?" 

Milo had just cocked his head, black tail lashing the air behind him in furious whips. 

All that Gavin knew was that the damned sock was clearly not his; judging by the bright, sunshine yellow color and the repeating dog motif patterned into the fabric. It looked like it belonged to a kid or something; albeit slightly large for what he assumed was a younger child. Whoever it belonged to, however, it certainly had no place in the muted colors of his particular apartment. 

Which obviously meant that Milo had swiped it from someplace else. Likely a neighbor, or something. Which was just fucking great. 

Gavin sighed, scrubbing a weary hand down his face. His cat was still perched by his feet, slightly confused, black tipped tail curled like a question mark behind him. He let out an almost indignant meow, seemingly miffed by the lack of expected praise. 

Gavin glared at him from between his fingers. "Yeah, yeah; you're one to talk, you little shit." He huffed when Milo got up and started slinking a winding passage around his feet, nudging his head repeatedly against his jean-clad legs. He looked back up at him and meowed, almost insistently. "Hmn. Yeah; no. You're not getting any pets until you're telling me who in the goddamned hell you robbed, asshole." 

Milo blinked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. 

"Mreow." He answered curtly, his tail wound around Gavin's leg. 

Gavin sighed and gave in, bending into a crouch to run his fingers through the tabby's short dark fur. Milo purred contentedly and bumped his head into the curl of his palm. 

Gavin chuckled, despite himself. "You're a spoilt little shit, you know that?" 

Milo purred in lieu of response. 

Gavin straightened, spotted the sad lump of fabric still lying forlorn and discarded on the carpet, and grimaced. He nudged it slightly with a socked foot, stooped, plucked it off the floor with a tentative hand for closer inspection. He had a sinking feeling that the sock had once been brand new - before Milo had taken his goddamned teeth and claws to it. Now it looked like an ugly yellow tangle of shredded seams and knotted threads. Even the dogs looked noticeably less smiley from where they peered out at him from behind the gaping holes. 

"Fucking hell, Miles; you really went into fucking town with this thing, didn't you? What the hell did the dogs even do to you?" The cat just nudged his leg and continued to pur. Gavin scoffed. "Fuckin.. whatever, I guess. With any luck, maybe they'll think their washing machine just ate it up or something." 

Shit, he was too tired for this. It had been a long day at the precinct and he was just about ready to crash into bed and sleep like the dead for six hours; not sort this...sock mess out. At least Milo had just taken a sock from wherever he'd went - hopefully, the owner wouldn't even notice that the thing had gone missing. Or maybe he'd just attribute it to other causes that didn't involve tabby cats slinking into their house and nabbing articles of clothes from their cupboards. 

He strode into his house and chucked the sorry thing into the trash. Even if he managed to pinpoint the owner, it'd probably be too much of a lost cause to return anyway. Fucking cat. 

He glared back down the entranceway. Milo was still seated by the door, innocently grooming himself with a paw. He looked back up at him quizzically. Chirped a rusty meow. 

"Milo," he addressed curtly, stabbing an incriminating finger at where the torn sock was now lying forlorn at the bottom of the bin. "No more of this shit, okay? I swear to God." 

The cat cocked his head, then went back to his grooming. 

Gavin was too tired to say much of anything else. 

He showered, refilled the kibble in Milo's bowl, and crashed into bed for the next six hours. 

He woke up to his alarm blaring a screeching drone the following morning. Shoved himself off of bed, argued with a choking car engine for fifteen minutes before it finally decided to give in and start. Worked another day at the precinct on paperwork up to his knees regarding his latest case and Fowler chewing his ass out for some small, stupid thing he forgot as soon as he stepped out of his office 'cause he couldn't be damned to even remember. 

And came home to Milo dropping a shirt at his feet. 

A _whole fucking shirt._

_"Fucking_...What the _fuck_ , Milo!" Gavin cursed down at the tabby, who still had the fucking audacity to look almost pleased with himself. The shirt laid in a crumpled heap between them, adorned with a comical depiction of a smiling Shiba Inu, tongue lolling and paws raised. It was, thankfully, in far less dire straits than the sock had been; sporting only minor injuries like a few stains (probably from where Milo had dragged it across the ground) and tiny pinpricks in the fabric from where he'd shoved his claws through the thread. But still, a whole _fucking shirt._ That was not Gavin's. And could've come from anywhere. 

Milo peered up at him with large, eager eyes. Gavin could only scowl back at him, wrenching the shirt off the floor. "No, you're not getting pets this time. I _fucking told you_ \- nope; forget it, you never listen anyway. Where the hell did you even get this from?"

He shook the shirt out and looked it over. Despite the childish motif, it seemed a size more suited to an adult - one (to his slight chagrin) a little bit taller than himself. He honestly wasn't sure what to make of the information. He couldn't exactly picture what the fuck kind of person the shirt belonged to, nor did he really want to. 

Gavin debated just throwing it out again with the sock, but it honestly didn't look too worse for wear; sans the claw-marks and the stains bruising the Shiba's face. After a moment of musing, he decided he'd just put it to wash with his other clothes and keep it until something happened. Maybe by some chance he'd bump into the dude and have the opportunity to return it and apologize for his fucking cat; though he could only assume with great disdain how awkward and ridiculous that apology would be like. 

The days following, much to Gavin's dismay, did not improve. 

Wherever Milo was snatching the clothes - and for whatever fucking reason, too - he seemed resolute to revisit it every goddamned afternoon Gavin was working at the precinct. He'd come home every evening to find a new article of pilfered clothing in his house and a preening cat planted right the fuck in front of it, small chest puffed out proudly like stealing from Gavin's neighbors and sending his owner's blood pressure skyrocketing was anything to be proud of. By the end of the week Gavin had a fucking closet's worth of mostly dog-inspired clothes that consisted of 5 socks (none of which were a matching pair), 3 shirts (Shiba, Corgi, and what he had to Google was a Saint Bernard, respectively), and 1 whole fucking hoodie with a dog-eared hood and paw prints embroidered into the sleeves. When Milo had sauntered up to him that Friday evening trailing that entire thing in his mouth, Gavin almost just about had a heart attack. 

"Milo, Jesus fuck," he'd whispered, almost resignedly, prying the thing delicately from Milo's jaws. If he wasn't too busy fucking panicking about the state of things he'd almost be awed. Shit; if the weird dog neighbor somehow didn't notice three of his shirts and five halves of his socks going missing, he'd certainly have recognized that something was amiss now. "Why and how. Why and the _fuck_ how."

And like all the others, he'd put the stupid thing to wash and then stuffed it into a box he'd had to designate for that particular purpose, crammed with all the other stolen clothes. On one of the flaps, he'd scrawled a messy 'Dog Person's Clothes', as he’d taken to dubbing the guy mentally (and why wouldn’t he, with all the dogs) in Sharpie and set the thing by the door. Gavin promised himself he'd set about trying to find the dude once he had a chance so he could go about returning the damned things, but he couldn't even imagine how that interaction would even go; especially since, owing to his tendency to isolate himself and be a general jackass to anyone he so much as met, he didn't really know any of his neighbors much at all. What the fuck would he even say? 'Hi, neighbor! I don't believe we’ve ever met since I'm too much of a socially challenged asshole to exchange pleasantries with the common man that doesn't include at least one swear word or petty insult in it. Oh, and sorry if your clothes have been going missing lately; but my equally an asshole of a cat has probably been sneaking into your house and stealing them. Don't worry; I washed them! You ever want to go out sometimes and grab a beer?' 

It made Gavin cringe just thinking about it. 

So maybe he might have put off the search for the guy a little. Or a lot. Or maybe he didn't really put much effort into looking for him much at all, and the cardboard box sat by the doorway collecting more goddamned clothes by the end of next week. This time the haul consisted of another fucking sock (which still didn't match any of the ones already in the box, goddammit) and - surprise, surprise - a white dress shirt. Looks like Mr. Dog Person wasn't a complete fashion disaster after all. And Milo at least had a taste for variety, the little shit. 

Finally though, there was a break in the pattern. 

The following Friday was a rare day in which Gavin, for once, decided to forgo overtime and extra hours to return home early for the night. He'd always been more than a little ambitious - and even more so competitive - which often meant an almost spine-breaking amount of hours spent in the precinct if it meant he'd edge just a little bit closer to a promotion. But some days, when the exhaustion hit fast and heavy like a kick in the chest, he just...didn't feel it, promotion be damned. He'd just sign himself out and stumble the fuck back home. 

Which is how he caught Milo, for once, in the midst of the act; slinking about outside a neighbor's door with what looked like another dog shirt wedged in his mouth. 

"Ah-ha!" Gavin couldn't resist shouting despite his fatigue, complete with a triumphant grin and an incriminating finger stabbed the cat's way. He'd almost feel ridiculous if he didn't feel so irrationally accomplished at having finally caught Milo in the deed red-handed. "I finally fucking caught you, asshole!"

Milo looked up at him, startled and slightly confused. He meowed and in doing so dropped the shirt at his feet. Gavin lunged and snatched it up, finding a cartoon corgi with sunglasses smiling up at him under an equally comical yellow sun. Then he looked up at the door that the tabby had been slinking around, the window pane next to it that had been left slightly ajar that Milo had undoubtedly emerged from and had been exploiting to commit his larceny. He spied the number plate etched by the door - apartment C-5-04. Just two doors down his own. 

Well, shit. At least now he knew where Milo had been coming and going the past two weeks. And where the elusive Mr. Dog Person lived. 

That was something, at least. 

Just as he was debating ringing the doorbell, explaining the situation, and maybe returning the box of pilfered belongings still sitting by the door of his own apartment (or maybe just grabbing Milo and legging it back home as fast as he could to avoid the awkwardness guaranteed from that interaction), he heard the telltale fall of footsteps behind him and then- 

"Oh, um. Hello?" 

Gavin startled, almost dropping the corgi shirt he was holding. He cursed himself when he realized just how strange he probably looked - just standing outside a random person's apartment with one of his shirts in his hand, shouting at a goddamned cat - and swung around, mumbled apologies already sitting stilted on his tongue. 

But when he saw who it was, all and any words died immediately in his throat. 

Because the person standing behind him, looking at him with a confused expression in his soft brown eyes, keys still clutched in one hand in preparation to unlock his door before he'd undoubtedly seen Gavin dawdling like an idiot in front of it, was one of the most fucking beautiful people Gavin had ever fucking seen. He was tall and lean, with fair skin scattered with an almost artistic sprinkling of moles, and had soft brown hair neatly kept but for a small, errant lock that curled in a tidy spiral down his brow. And shit, those had to be the softest, sweetest looking doe-eyes he'd ever fucking seen on any human being; even pinched as they were slightly in confusion and slight alarm. 

Who the fuck gave this guy the right to be so fucking cute?

When he’d realized that Gavin had frozen - like a fucking gay _idiot_ \- and that no response was forthcoming, his eyebrows had furrowed and he'd taken an uncertain step forward. "...can I help you?"

Gavin was about to reply - probably with something stupid and stuttery to match the frantic rabbit's pace of his own dumb heart - when his eyes had involuntarily fallen to the cute guy's chest. 

And then the words had lodged in his throat.

Because what Gavin could see he was wearing beneath an unzipped, soft grey hoodie was a white shirt, fronted with what was unmistakably, _unquestionably,_ the black beady eyes of a smiling Shiba Inu, one paw raised in jubilant greeting. 

Oh, _fuck._

This was Dog Person. 

So not only was this guy the cutest, most beautiful fucking person Gavin had seen in his entire fucking lifetime as a bona fide Gay Disaster, he was also Gavin's neighbor. 

And also the neighbor his cat had been stealing clothes from over the course of the past two weeks. 

"Oh, fuck," he accidentally blurted, eyes wide. "Its you." 

Dog Person tilted his head, confused (shit, he even looked like a puppy). He followed Gavin's gaze onto his shirt, looked back up at the shirt Gavin was still holding incriminatingly in one hand, then at Milo approaching like the little shit he was to slink his furry body between the confused stranger's legs, meowing cordially (Gavin had never been so jealous of his cat before that moment). Slowly, Gavin could see the gears turning in his head as he put one and one together. He winced, bracing himself for the imminent confrontation. 

Dog Person blinked down at Milo, then back up at Gavin - and then smiled, slow and amused. 

Gavin felt like a crop of fireworks had ignited in his chest. 

"Ah, I see," Dog Person mused, his voice and eyes twinkling with mirth. "So you two are the thieves that have been stealing my clothes over the past two weeks?"

Gavin flushed and felt the immediate, irrational, _childish_ urge to absolve himself of blame from this perfect stranger's eyes. 

"I-I didn't fucking do shit!" Gavin retorted, hands raised stupidly like a cartoon villain. "Milo's just been even more of an asshole than usual!" 

Inwardly, Gavin wanted to groan. And slap himself. First sentence in and he'd already sworn like a sailor and pinned all the blame on his cat like some grubby six year old found with a hand down the cookie jar. Real smooth. 

Dog Person's smile didn't falter. He looked back down at the cat winding himself around his legs and grinned. "...is that so?" He knelt to a crouch, ran a hand through Milo's short fur. The tabby purred under the attention and bumped his head in the stranger's hand, lapping his fingers with his coarse tongue in a tentative hello. 

Gavin had never wanted to be a cat so badly. 

"Milo, is it? Well, I have to say, you're not what I imagined a thief would look like," Dog Person chuckled, scratching Milo behind the ears. The tabby pushed his head further into the contact like the spoilt little shit he was. Gavin glared down at him.

Then he straightened, looked back at Gavin, and pinned him with a beaming smile that punched all the air out of Gavin's lungs. "I suppose you're one of my neighbors, then?" 

Gavin nodded dumbly. 

Dog Person brightened, thrusting out a hand. "It's nice to meet you. My name is Connor, Connor Anderson. I just moved here last month."

Well, shit; pleasantries. The very thing Gavin would've ordinarily hated. But looking into Connor's soft brown eyes, the gentle curl of his air, the flush of his cheeks as he smiled, had Gavin thinking that maybe this once wouldn't be too bad. He took Connor's hand almost dumbly, marveling at how soft and warm it felt cupped in his own. 

They shook. "Gavin. Gavin Reed. I'm a detective. I uh..live a few doors down. Apartment 02." 

Connor smiled at him. Beneath him Milo continued slinking between his legs, meowing up a storm, mourning the loss of attention. _Be quiet, you,_ Gavin hissed mentally behind ground teeth. _It's my turn now, you little shit._

"Nice to meet you then; Detective Reed, Milo."

"Gavin," Gavin amended, a little quickly. "Er, you can call me Gavin. And I uh..." Gavin swallowed, cursing how awkwardly the words tumbled from him. He returned the shirt to Connor, flushing. "I should probably return this. And all the...um, other stuff, Milo stole. It's all in my apartment."

Connor took the shirt, draped it over an arm. Then looked up and smiled. "Lead the way then, Gavin." 

Well, shit. 

Gavin was going to die, wasn't he? Was it possible for someone to just abruptly combust into flames? 

Gavin hoisted Milo into his arms, mumbled something in assent, and lead him down the hall towards his apartment. Then he absolutely did not fumble as he was getting his keys to unlock his door and did _not_ flush when as he handed Connor the box of clothes and watched him smile down at the words scrawled on it. 

"'Dog Person?'" He questioned, one eyebrow raised. 

Gavin flushed. "Um, I needed to call you something. Mentally. And well.." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Gestured vaguely to the shirt Connor was wearing, as well as the one draped over his arm.

Connor smiled, undoubtedly amused by his flustered behavior. Goddammit. "I suppose you're not wrong; I do like dogs. Or any type of animal, really. I work in an animal care shelter."

"Oh. That's.." Gavin struggled for words. "...that's really cool." 

Connor pinked, adjusted the box in his hands, smiled coyly. Gavin thought it was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. 

They spent a moment just smiling stupidly at each other before Milo bounded up, meowed, and broke the spell. Connor blinked, flushed a bit, cleared his throat. "Well, I suppose I should get going now. It's getting a bit late." 

Gavin tried to tamp down his disappointment. 

"..alright then. Um, it was nice meeting you." Gavin cursed how awkward he was. Why couldn't he function like a normal fucking person? 

Connor smiled at him. Gavin decided he loved that smile. "Same to you, dete- Gavin." He adjusted his grip on his box of clothes. "...thank you for taking care of and returning my clothes. After your cat stole them, that is." He finished this phrase with a coy grin and a playful lilt that was unmistakable. 

Gavin winced, glared down at his cat. "...yeah. Milo, you need to learn a fucking lesson here." 

The cat just meowed at him. 

Connor laughed. He fumbled slightly, then shuffled back a step almost unwillingly. "Goodnight then, Gavin." 

Gavin swallowed. "...yeah. Goodnight, Connor." 

Connor nodded. Turned to leave. 

"Wait!" Gavin blurted in a burst of sudden panic, panicking even more when Connor turned to look at him, eyes curious and questioning. 

He scratched the back of his neck, almost sheepishly. Blurted the first thing that came to mind: "...you wanna maybe..." He fumbled awkwardly, "...go out, sometimes? Like, grab a beer or something?"

Well shit, that was a disaster. He might as well dig his own grave and lie in it now. 

But then Connor smiled at him, soft and sweet and so, so radiant, that Gavin knew with clear and blinding clarity he was well and truly fucked. 

"I'd like that, detective.”

**Author's Note:**

> Me: alright, I wanna just write a short and sweet one-shot that's maybe around 1000-2000 words.  
> Me: (writes 3500+ words)  
> Me: goddammit
> 
> also sorry if the ending is kinda rushed cuz i honest to god had no idea how to end it D:


End file.
